The semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) industry has experienced rapid growth. In the course of IC evolution, functional density (i.e., the number of interconnected devices per chip area) has generally increased while geometry size (i.e., the smallest component (or line) that can be created using a fabrication process) has decreased. This scaling down process generally provides benefits by increasing production efficiency and lowering associated costs. Such scaling down has also increased the complexity of processing and manufacturing ICs and, for these advances to be realized, similar developments in IC manufacturing are needed. For example, as IC technologies are continually progressing to smaller technology nodes, such as 65 nm technology node, 45 nm technology node, and below, simply scaling down similar designs used at larger feature sizes often results in hot spots or problem areas in the device. Hot spots refer to characteristics of the device that prevent the device from performing as desired. Examples of hot spots include pinching, necking, bridging, dishing, erosion, RC delay, metal line thickness variations, Cu residue, and other characteristics that affect device performance. These hot spots can be due to the circuit design and/or the process controls. Although existing methods for detecting and correcting hot spots have been generally adequate for their intended purposes, they have not been entirely satisfactory in all respects.